Xianghao's venture into the realm of crs (hopefully)

[Xianghao]

Exams are over! I finally have time to redo my 2 feet sakura tank and include crs in it. Bought a 2nd hand cl 450 earlier but haven't meddled with it til now. What I plan to do is create a partition for my 2 feet tank to separate my better sakuras from the cherry grades. Later on when i include crs, I could also segregrate them.

Below is the last tank shot before I dismantle the tank:

[Xianghao]

Oh snap, how do you post pics from photobucket into you thread?

[vt_snowman87]

there is a direct link, something like [IMG.......] just copy the whole strign and paste it in your text.. =)

i am also into CRS now, lets share tips and meet up in school soon bro!

[arnold]

Allow me to help

[Xianghao]

*sorry for bad picture quality, had access to camera phone only*

Day 1:
Took a good look at my old set up for the last time(thanks arnold for helping me with the pic), thinking how it was a bad choice of substrate for a sakura tank since the substrate colour was the same as the shrimp.

Took out all the plants, spent loads of time hunting for my shrimps and putting them into a small bucket with a small sponge filter. Anybody care to guess how many shrimp are there in the bucket? My guess is at least close to a 100! Kept a big bucket of the cycled water in the tank to allow the faster cycling of the new set up.


Emptied and cleaned out the tank and then put black oyama paper.

Through the forum i learnt out to put oyama paper the right way using soapy water. For the first time, no bubbles on my background!


Laid out the substrate and split them into 2 sides. (Er.. Parting of the red sea?)


This is my design of the partition wall. I included the 2 holes on top and bottom to allow water circulation. Plan to cover these holes with netting of some sort to deny shrimps from passing through. Brought my design to a glass maker at weld road to custom make. Costed me $25 for a 4mm acrylic board custom cut.


Went to bukit batok nature reserve to collect some rocks, but on top the finding the rocks i was looking for, i chanced upon some moss which grew on a piece of wood. It grew like carpet and it was easy to dislodge as an entire carpet so i harvested some back.

[Xianghao]

Day 2
Collected my custom made partition wall from the shop at weld road. Turned out nice! I quickly went back home to do up the rest of the job, using tuperware cover, silicon glue, some netting thingy from daiso. I am quite pleased with the result, too bad i have to leave the silicon glue to cure for 24 hours.



Meanwhile, this is what I have in my tank. Besides the rocks and the 'carpet grass, i have some windelov from my previous set up, and i also tied some US fissiden and xmas moss on the rocks. Notice how in the pic I am trying to hide the pump to the chiller behind the windelov.


Hooked the tank up to my CL 450 which i bought 2nd hand.

[mordrake]

just 3 comments...

1. your substrate looks abit thin
2. clear the stuff around your chiller. good ventilation is required for good chiller efficiency.
3. using back the old water doesn't mean your new tank is cycled. but i guess you're using back the old canister too. let the tank run for a few days before adding the shrimps back to be safe. run longer before adding crs

[Xianghao]

Thanks mordrake for your comments. I added more substrate already, the substrate in the picture above seems rather little because i have not put the partition wall in so i wanted to part the soil into two first. However I also do not intend to put that much substrate, only about 2-3cm thick mainly because i do not intend to plant anything into the soil. For the chiller, I have taken note to leave the front and the back exposed to allow air circulation.

[Xianghao]

Day 3

The silicon on the partition wall has cured. I can finally put the partition wall in the tank. Also bought more windelov from c328 to try to achieve a 2 sided look. Added the partition wall and did some newbie scaping. This is the result.



I also added 2 commando malayan shrimp to the tank to test water. They seem to be fine with the water condition so far.

[Xianghao]

I added my sakura shrimp for a few days already. Looks like they are fine with the new environment, just that I am not sure whether the flow rate of the pump to the chiller is too strong (2000l/h) I used a rain bar to reduce the impact, and also i left the end of the rainbar open and aiming quite close to the side of the tank. Anybody have better ideas?

[baranne]

I added my sakura shrimp for a few days already. Looks like they are fine with the new environment, just that I am not sure whether the flow rate of the pump to the chiller is too strong (2000l/h) I used a rain bar to reduce the impact, and also i left the end of the rainbar open and aiming quite close to the side of the tank. Anybody have better ideas?

rainbar aiming to the side of the tank direct would be the best method that i would use to reduce the flow rate.

[monstar]

wahhh the moss survive??

[Xianghao]

baranne: Thanks, I will give it a try. So i cover the end of the rainbar and then aim the holes of the rainbar to the back of the tank right?

monstar: The mosses are fine, are tied them with fishing line to the rocks. Why do you think they won't survive?

[baranne]

baranne: Thanks, I will give it a try. So i cover the end of the rainbar and then aim the holes of the rainbar to the back of the tank right?

yup that should be fine.

[Xianghao]

one observation is that because my 'grass carpets' do not sink completely on the substrate, my sakuras tend to hide under the carpets, only coming out during meal times. Good and bad, good is that they are somewhat shielded by the current. Bad is I cant admire them unless I entice them with food. My original idea was to have an open spaced frontage so that I can see the shrimp more clearly, but looks like I have to give and take.

[Xianghao]

Full tank shot without inhabitants:


Some cherries transfered from my nano tank in hall. They are 3-4 generation descendants from 50 for $10 cherry shrimp parents, but I think they are worthy to be called sakuras now. Don't ask me how the colours have improved, I have no idea but I am amazed by it.


Full tank shot with the sakuras, cherries, 4 ottos and 1 st helenas added in:


Some random shots:




An interesting observation:

I observed my st helenas sucking the flesh out of an adult cherry shrimp that didnt make it, leaving only its outer shell in perfect form. I remember reading about a thread about a picture of a dead shrimp with no flesh and only the empty shell and there was a debate over whether it was a molted shell or a dead shrimp. Well to the people who saw that thread, I guess we now have an answer. The culprit was probably a St Helenas (aka Snail killers)

[Xianghao]

And introducing the stars of the show, the very reason for the chiller, the rescape, the partition wall, the test kits, the title of the thread, the time and money spent:
Bought them from a nice bro this afternoon.

[Xianghao]

the bro who sold me the crs complained that my lousy picture quality did not do his crs justice, so I shall attempt to do them more justice with some better taken pictures. Haha.


The moment of release to their new home after acclimitising:
On your mark.. Get set...


Go!


Comments Welcome!

[baranne]

any shots of them in the actual tank itself?

[mordrake]

very nice CRS you have there.
actually why the need to separate the CRS and RCS? they wouldn't cross and i'm sure they would like to have more space to roam about.